1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a woven fabric, which is suitable for producing articles such as garments or bags without substantially necessitating any sewing process.
2. Description of Related Art
In a garment making from a woven fabric, a process taken unchanged from an old day is that the woven fabric is subjected to a cutting along respective pattern papers to obtain various cut pieces such as a front body, a back body and a collar and that the cut pieces are subjected to a sewing process where the cut pieces are connected with each other so as to obtain a garment.
From the view point of increase in an efficiency of the garment making, an automation is possible as far as the cutting is concerned by employing computerized cutting. Namely, in a semi custom-made men""s garment, a system is now widely employed, in which system pattern papers corresponding to various sizes are stored in a computer, from which stored pattern papers a pattern is selected, which is the best matched to the result of size measurement, to which selected pattern paper a suitable correction is cone on a computer display, along which corrected pattern paper a cutting is done by using a laser cutting device.
As far as sewing is concerned, an automatic operation is much more difficult, and therefore a manual operation is, basically, still used. Therefore, the sewing is a bottleneck from the viewpoint of increase in production efficiency as well as of decrease in a production cost. Under these circumstances, there has heretofore been a strong requirement as to a development in a garment making by which any sewing is not necessary.
As far as weft knitting is concerned, where interwoven loops can be desirably laterally moved for controlling a knitting width, a garment with no sewing has been conventional from old days where only manual knitting is done. Furthermore, even a mechanical knitting is concerned, sophisticated weft knitting machines have, recently, commercially been available, where one to one independent electronic control of knitting needles is employed, thereby realizing, without sewing, a fully automated garment making, including a interweaving at opened portions of the garment such as a sleeve, a collar and a base or hemline. As to this kind of weft knitting machine, refer, for example, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 3-75656.
However, a weaving technique is completely different from a weft knitting technique. In other words, weaving technique can not, at any means, be applied to the weaving technique. The present invention aims, thus, to eliminate substantially sewing, also, in a garment making from a woven fabric.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a woven fabric is provided, having repeated patterns to be cut to articles, said fabric comprising a plurality of layers woven by a jacquard, among which layers at least one first layer becomes one side of the article while at least one remaining second layer becomes the other side of the article, said fabric further comprising interwoven portions for interweaving said first and second layers each other along a contour line of said article except at locations which become openings of the article as produced, said repeated patterns constructed by said interwoven portions being distributed along substantially entire length and the width of the fabric.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a woven fabric is provided, having repeated patterns to be cut to garments, said fabric comprising a plurality of layers woven by a jacquard, among which layers at least one first layer becomes a front body of a garment while at least one remaining second layer becomes back body of a garment, said fabric further comprising interwoven portions for interweaving said first and second layers each other along a contour line of the garment, said repeated pattern constructed by said interwoven portions being distributed along substantially entire length and the width of the fabric.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, a method for forming articles from a fabric is provided, comprising the steps of:
weaving, by using a jacquard, a fabric having a plurality of layers, among which layers, at least one first layer becomes one side of the article while the remaining at least one second layer becomes the other side of the article, while interweaving said first and second layers with each other along a contour line of the article, and;
cutting the fabric along said contour line, thereby separating, from the fabric, an article in which the first and second layers are connected with each other by means of the interweaving except at a location which becomes an opening of the article.
According to further another aspect of the present invention, a method for forming garments from a fabric is provided, comprising the steps of:
weaving, by using a jacquard, a fabric having a plurality of layers, among which layers, at least one first layer becomes one side of the garment while the remaining at least one second layer becomes the other side of the garment, while interweaving said first and second layers with each other along a contour line of the article, and;
cutting the fabric along said contour line, thereby separating, from the fabric, a garment in which the first and second layers are connected with each other by means of the interweaving except at a location which becomes an opening of the garment, such as a collar, a sleeve or a base et al.
According to the present invention, a cutting of the fabric along contour line is done in such a manner that garments are separated. The cutting is done in such a manner that, except at positions which become openings such as a collar, sleeve and base or hemline, the interweavings are at least partially remained. As a result, an article or garment is obtained, in which the upper and lower sides are, along the contour line of the garment, connected with each other by the interwoven parts, while necessary openings for a passage of portions of wearer are provided. It should be noted that the contour lines are repeated patterns on the fabric. In other words, the size of the article or garment as obtained correspond to the size of the repeated pattern. Furthermore, as easily understood by those skilled in this art, the size of a repeated pattern on the fabric corresponds to the number of warp yarns which can be subjected to independent shedding motions. This means that a large size of the article as cut out from the fabric can be obtained when a jacquard of a large number of hooks are used. Thus, when a jacquard of the number of hooks, which correspond to the total number of warp yarns, the contour of the article can extend across the entire width of the weft width, thereby obtaining a maximum size of the article or garment. Furthermore, due to the use of the jacquard, a desired independent shedding control of the every warp yarns in one repeat (outline of the garment) becomes possible, so that a desired weaving design can be imparted to both of the upper and lower side of the article or a front and back bodies of a garment. In a recently developed jacquard machine, a completely computerized type from the reading of a design paper to a hook position control is realized. This type of jacquard machine is suitable for practicing the present invention.
Articles according to the present invention other than the garments include bags et al. In this case it is possible that such a part like tying string or shoulder strap can be integrally formed in the fabric. Thus, a cutting of the fabric to the bags allows these parts to be also separated as the string or a shoulder strap.
According to the present invention, it is possible that the first layer is a front body of a garment while the second layer is a back body of the garment. The front and back bodies are interwoven along the contour line of the garment. A cutting of the fabric is done along the contour line so that the interweaving parts are at least partially remained, thereby preventing the front and back bodies from being separated in the garments. At the areas such as the collar, sleeve and hemline, where portions of a human body are passed, any interweaving may not be provided from the beginning. Thus, in this case, a mere cutting of the fabric along the contour line allows the opening at the collar, sleeve and hemline to be automatically created. As an alternative, a weak interweaving yarns may exist at the portions of the collar, sleeve and hemline, which are withdrawn or removed after the execution of the cutting. According to the present invention, it is intended that any additional process may not be applied to the cut-out portions at the collar, sleeve and hemline et al. Thus, a particular kind of weave structure, by which a loosening is less likely, can be selected. As another way for preventing a loosening, an arrangement of a pattern as a contour line of a garment in a fabric may be such that a cut line runs in a direction other than that of the warp or weft yarn so long as it is possible. Furthermore, it may also possible that, as for warp or weft yarns, bulky textured yarns such as a wooly nylon can be used at a predetermined spacing. A bulkiness of the textured yarn is effective for making a mutual engagement of the yarns to be increased, thereby making the loosening to be less likely. Furthermore, according to the concept of the present invention, the cut-out portions at the collar, sleeve and hemline, as they are, become the openings of the completed product. Thus, an appearance of the garments according to the present invention is quite different from that of usual garments in which the sewing or interweaving is done. However, such a difference is from the view point of design may be one cause which make the product to be accepted in the market without generating any sense of disharmony. Finally, if it is necessary, a interweaving for preventing loosing can be done at the cut-out portions. In this case, the garment as obtained is not the one that is made without any additional sewing. However, in comparison with the prior art, a work load at the sewing process can highly be reduced.